In an era when anybody can crank out music in stereo that doesn’t sound half-bad, how do you distinguish yourself? The same way the movie studios are doing it, of course: add a dimension.

So now, I want the home version: How about an iPhone app that plays a composition on many phones simultaneously, networked via BlueTooth, and requires you to place them strategically around a space to get the full effect. Maybe dynamic performance instructions flash on-screen: “Run forward!” or “Muffle this phone with your shirt!”

If the app knew the relative locations of the iPhones — (you, as a user, could probably give it some clues) — the sound could swish and pan from phone to phone, in a sort of super-amorphous surround sound.

Oh, man, I love Zaireeka. Have you ever seen recordings from the Tape Experiments, Boom-Box Experiments, and the Parking Lot Experiments?

As the names suggest, there’s something relentlessly analog about what the Lips did in the 90s. Part of the problem/genius was that the multiple recordings could never be perfectly synced. When intrepid fans started using software programs to time, record, and mix down Zaireeka, and when people talked about releasing a 5.1 DVD-Audio version of the thing, the whole “happening” aspect of it lost some of its bite.

Zaireeka also inspired one of the most divisive Pitchfork reviews (criminally now scrubbed from the site) when Jason Josephes gave it a 0.0, lamenting that he couldn’t even play it on his ratty CD player (with a bit of tape holding the whole kit together). Mark Richardson’s look back is (to say the least) way more appreciative.